Letters from Titanic passengers up for auctionTwo letters from Titanic passengers are to be auctioned in New York this month, one of them featuring an...
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Terry Pratchett Knighted
Terrific news -- the BBC reports that author Terry Pratchett, whose novels have sold millions of copies worldwide, has been created a knight in the New...
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I missed a birthday!
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 | 11:59 AM
Well, good lord, how could have missed it? Pulp romantic fiction publisher Mills & Boon batted its century on 28 November, and I didn't even notice.And...
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Can a man write romantic pulp fiction?
"Can a man really write a Mills & Boon?" asks the BBC newsletter in the arts and entertainment section. (American readers, think "Harlequin.")Apparently...
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O for Obama
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Monday, December 29, 2008 | 1:58 PM
President-elect Barack Obama has selected Yale's Elizabeth Alexander to write and read a poem for his inauguration on 20 January. Intrigued by the news...
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EU online library reopens
The BBC has announced that the European Union's digital library, europeana, which crashed soon after its launch on 20 November -- apparently because so...
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Winnie the Pooh for King!
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, December 26, 2008 | 12:05 PM
In these hard times, it was a delight to read heartwarming news in the BBC arts and culture section -- that the favorite of childhood bedtimes, Winnie...
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Let the cover match the book!
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 | 1:45 PM
I have always been interested in the art of hand bookbinding, since the day that artist Julie Beinecke Stackpole showed us her entry in a competition...
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Truth is truly stranger than fiction
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 | 4:06 PM
Fictional Corruption Meets Real Life Corruption, headlines GalleyCat on mediabistro.com, going on to ask, "What happens when your novel comes to life?'The...
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Electronic books taking on at last?
In today's New York Times, writers Brad Stone and Motoko Rich ask, "Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from pages to pixels?" Electronic book...
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The things you find left between the pages of a book
Sunday's New York Times magazine has a delightfully meditative piece by Henry Alford, called "You Never Know What You'll Find in a Book." Alford talks...
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Booker Prize sponsor damaged by Madoff losses
Last Sunday's book section of the New York Times features an alarming story by Dave Itzkoff. The Man Group, a publicly traded investment company and hedge...
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Will Borders claw its way out of trouble?
Christmas sales are drear, so hopes rest on post-Christmas sales.Borders announced yesterday that they have extended the deadline by one month on both...
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Hopefully not the Nobel prize for literature ...
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Monday, December 22, 2008 | 1:54 PM
The probity of the Nobel Prize is under investigation, in high profile accusations of bribery and undue influence, according to news released by The Times.Two senior figures in the process that chose Harald zur Hausen for this year's Nobel Prize for...
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More fuss from the Nobel sector
Horace Engdahl Resigns After Ten Years as Secretary of the Swedish AcademyHorace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize-distributing Swedish Academy, has just announced that he will leave his post in June. A couple of months ago, I posted...
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Kafka and pornography?
BRITON SAVAGED FOR BOOK ON SEEDY SIDE OF GREAT WRITERCRITICS IN TURN ACCUSED OF 'CONSPIRACY OF CENSORSHIP'Thus run the sub-headers in a story written...
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At last - the NYT review of that "Jewel of Medina" book
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, December 12, 2008 | 12:44 PM
This weekend, Lorraine Adams reviews Sherry Jones's Jewel of Medina, the highly controversial novelization of the story of Muhammed's fourth wife, for...
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Heartwarming -- or just plain weird?
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Thursday, December 11, 2008 | 12:29 PM
Nine-year-old Alec Greven hand-wrote a book, called it How to Talk to Girls, and sold it at a school fair for $3. Apparently it went like hot cakes,...
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History of the British Merchant Navy
Despite hard times, The History Press is bravely forging ahead with a multi-volume history of the British Merchant Navy, penned by eminent maritime writer...
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Black October and British book sales
Major British bookstore chain Waterstone's reports that sales are down and getting worse -- and it can't all be blamed on the lack of a Harry Potter miracle.The...
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Sea Quotations and Elevated Reading
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 | 12:53 AM
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reckons bookstores are the "temple of the soul," according to a story by John Elder in The Age.And, sure enough,...
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Tribune Company Files for Bankruptcy
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Monday, December 8, 2008 | 11:28 AM
The Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection in a federal court in Delaware on Monday, as the publisher of newspapers like The Los Angeles Times...
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A huge plus for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Thursday, December 4, 2008 | 4:18 PM
The famous Auckland Writers and Readers Festival will truly glitter on its tenth birthday next May. While the program is always exciting, next year the...
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Woes in the media world continue
At Viacom and NBC Universal more than a thousand jobs are being shed before Christmas, according to the New York Times.Sumner M. Redstone has announced...
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WORD OF THE YEAR
Actually, it should be PHRASE of the year. I learn to my amusement that Webster's New World College Dictionary runs an annual "word of the year" competition....
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SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Chris Kelly, in an amusing blog on Huffington Post, headlined GET SARAH PALIN'S NEW BOOK -- FREE! breaks the news that magazine Newsmax is offering "Sarah...
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Simon & Schuster trims staff
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 | 12:06 PM
More alarming news from the Wall Street fallout -- Lay-offs at Simon & SchusterAccording to Publisher's Lunch a memo from the CEO of the publishing...
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A JK ROWLING ORIGINAL BEEDLE ON DISPLAY
An Original Copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on Display in New YorkOne of just seven original copies of J. K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard,...
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BLACK FRIDAY
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, November 28, 2008 | 11:18 AM
Intrigued by the rush of adverts. for "Black Friday" which have crammed the online US new papers the last couple of days, I wondered why the term was...
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Sunday, November 23, 2008 | 11:37 AM
Let Us Give Thanks for a Bounty of PeopleFor children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds, and the wind soon blows them away,...
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European online library crashes on Mona Lisa mania
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, November 21, 2008 | 2:02 PM
A new digital library launched by the European Union has crashed within hours of opening - forcing its closure -- according to a BBC story.The Europeana...
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Service From The Sea– The New Zealand Navy Story
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Thursday, November 13, 2008 | 5:53 PM
Penguin Group (NZ), with support from the Royal New Zealand Navy and the Naval Museum, has produced a new navy history, Service from the Sea – Ngā Mahi...
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Sarah Palin to author a book
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Monday, November 10, 2008 | 9:23 PM
According to the ever-knowing GalleyCat, last week's defeat and resultant backlash might be stinging still, but former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah...
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Galleances and guinea fowl
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Sunday, November 9, 2008 | 4:48 PM
A MYSTERYWell, old ships' logbooks can be fascinating, because of the mysteries they hold, as well as the strange events and observations they reveal.As...
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Barack Obama and the libraries of America
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, November 7, 2008 | 12:28 PM
President-Elect Barack Obama keynoted the opening general session at the American Libraries Association Annual Conference in Chicago, June 23-29, 2005....
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The Female Shipwright
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, October 31, 2008 | 2:53 PM
As part of its “Caird Library Reprints” series, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has reprinted two works describing the very different maritime...
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Is the era of the print newspaper coming to an end?
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Thursday, October 30, 2008 | 12:56 PM
Lost in the glut of dismal news and the world's preoccupation with the US presidential election campaign is a week's worth of bad tidings for the print...
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Latest from Spy Mouse
Spy Mouse has emerged from a summer of reading books (and castles in Italy may have had something to do with it, too).The whisper, it seems, is that an...
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New series on women scientists
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 | 2:07 PM
In the harbinger of what promises to be remarkably successful venture, book distributor Beagle Bay of Nevada has just announced that one of their clients,...
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Tony Hillerman passes away
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Monday, October 27, 2008 | 5:44 PM
Sadly, the great mystery writer Tony Hillerman has died at the age of 83, and Ron and I have read the last of his wonderful books. Though Caucasian, Hillerman...
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A book jacket that breathes
Written By Lingkar Dunia on Friday, October 24, 2008 | 7:06 PM
It's funny, but you never think much about breathing. Until it's all you think about ...Amber Thody has responded to Hugh Price's comment that blue and...
7:06 PM | 0
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